Among these, YourStory stands out because it creates its own content while DailyHunt or Newsinshorts are content aggregators. The difference is that YourStory is the kind of a startup a journalist or a media person is likely to start while the others are more like something a technology person would start.

For this post, I’m going to try and understand YourStory’s valuation. I went through company filings to try and make sense of the business. I hope this helps people looking to start new media companies.

First things first. So how much money did YourStory raise? About Rs 15.5 crores by selling nearly 25% stake in the company through compulsory convertible preference shares (Series A).

That means YourStory was valued at about Rs 62 crores or about $10 mn post money.

Here’s a quick look at who owns how much in the company. I’ve clubbed the names of individuals who own a stake in the company into one column as promoters & others to avoid getting personal about it.

YourStory app is ranked 69th in the Apple store in the news category (App Annie).

Between 100k-500k downloads on Google Play Store.

Some takeaways

Building a media business in India is hard: Especially if you are a content creator. It’s taken the company over 4 years (incorporated in 2011) to get to about Rs 5 cr in revenues*.

Founder salary: The company’s founder took a massive pay cut from previous job at a large media house even if this meant longer hours and a lot of hard work.

Revenue targets: The company is targeting Rs 8.3 cr in revenues in FY2016 with Rs 3.47 cr coming from advertising, Rs 3.9 cr from events and Rs 1 cr from campaigns or native ads.

Expenses: Most expenses are to pay salaries, market events and advertising technology and hiring freelancers.

Events put the food on the table: It’s hardly surprising that events bring in most of the money followed by advertising and native advertising. Nearly half of the FY16 revenue is expected to come from events and another half from advertising and campaigns.